Potted film reviews by Gary Anthony Cross

September 10, 2016September 10, 2016

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

A crew of desperate armed robbers meet up in an abandoned warehouse after their heist of a jeweller’s shop goes terribly wrong.

At the beginning of the nineties, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana looked in disgust at the formulaic, soulless lumbering cash cow guitar music had become and using cues from grittier, purer classics of the past single-handedly swept away the self serving excesses of the genre and revolutionised it forever. Quentin Tarantino did exactly the same thing with cinematic crime drama. He examined the logistics of both being an undercover cop and planning a heist and introduced believable characters who spoke like real people; they weren’t just posturing stereotypes punctuating another set of pointless explosions and car chases. He created an ensemble cast of actors for their charisma and ability, not their box office drawing power. He scored it with wit using obscure music from the past that complimented the action rather than trying to make a fast buck selling yet another insipid rock ballad to people who don’t listen to music. Tarantino has often been accused of plagiarism, and this script does ‘borrow’ from City On Fire and The Taking Of Pelham 123.

But if you ask me, an original but bad film is still a bad film, while an unoriginal but brilliant film is still a brilliant film.